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The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl Recording, mixing, , and designing a vinyl LP

If you didn’t know, vinyl records are back. Of course, they never really went away, but the resurgence of vinyl over the past decade means that manufacturing, releasing, and distributing an or single on 12” or 7” vinyl is a viable option for your independent release. We’re thrilled to be part of the return of this medium; vinyl harkens to the origins of Disc Makers, after all. And renewing the debate over analog vs. and playback in an age obsessed with technology and expedience is what we live for.

Whatever your motivation for releasing an album on vinyl, there are realities to come to terms with, particularly the fact that the “art and science” of mastering and manufacturing has a lot more to do with art when comes to vinyl records.

Producing quality records on vinyl requires experience, skill, and know-how, and ultimately means more compromises when it comes to reproducing your source material. It’s also important to understand that vinyl manufacturing relies on unique production facilities, which currently translates to longer production schedules when manufacturing vinyl records compared to CDs.

We’ll discuss many of the nuances and detail the intricacies of the manufacturing process, from recording to production to graphic design. But first, let’s take a quick look at how vinyl works.

2 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl How vinyl works

Sound is the vibration of particles across a medium—air and water, for instance—in the form of waves. In 1877, first developed a way to record and play by imprinting sound wave information onto tinfoil by etching the electrical of a sound wave with a needle and creating a to read and reproduce the recorded sound.

Unlike the flat discs we use today, Edison’s early used cylinders, and the mechanical cylinder phonograph played sound with the help of a reproducer, which included a and a needle and a horn that broadcast the recorded material. The size of the horn determined the volume of the playback. (There’s a series of videos posted on YouTube by the EdisonTechCenter that explains this in great detail.)

A decade later, used the same principles, recording to a flat rubber disc, and then —the predecessor of the vinyl used for modern-day release.

While Edison originally envisioned the phonograph being used as a recording device for dictation and teaching, Berliner’s gramophone introduced the era of the recorded musical album, providing a way to mass produce recordings for people to play on systems in their homes. The process is similar to how records are enjoyed today.

3 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl Modern playback

A stylus, or record needle, is one component in a transducer—a device that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy (or vice versa). In the case of a record player, this transducer is a cartridge—composed of a stylus, cantilever, magnets, coils, and body—which converts the mechanical energy of the recorded vibrations into sound waves, which are amplified and broadcast through speakers.

A stylus is cone-shaped and typically made from or other gemstone or hard metal. The stylus fits into the grooves of the record, picking up and sending the etched vibrations through the cartridge, which converts the information into an electrical signal, sends it to an that boosts the signal’s power, and then to the speakers, which broadcast the sound.

The stylus’ job is to read all the information in the grooves, which were originally created using another needle as part of a transducer—in this case, converting the electrical energy of the sound waves into vibrations etched into the record grooves. In a stereo record groove, the right channel is recorded on the right wall, and the left channel is recorded on the left.

While mastering engineers preparing a recording for transfer to vinyl will adjust the groove pitch to account for dynamics in the program (i.e., louder and softer sections of your ), there are maximum and minimum depths permitted for a record’s groove. Too much low information combined with a lot of information spread across the stereo field can result in the stylus jumping out of the groove and skipping. Too shallow and narrow a groove, and the recorded sound can lose its stereo image and suffer from low volume.

Furthermore, a record only has so much space to contain the grooves. The length of your program—as well as the levels and contained in your recording—will affect the depth and width of the grooves, and ultimately the quality of the playback. This is one reason why mastering a recording for vinyl release is an important step in creating a high-quality end product.

4 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl Recording and mixing

Because of the inherent limitations in reproducing frequencies and volume, listeners will experience a difference in the dynamics of your recording when played on vinyl vs. any digital format. But that’s not necessarily a negative. One of the selling points of vinyl, and one of the reasons devotees praise it as a superior playback medium, is that you can exploit that “analog sound.”

The style of the music recorded will factor into the amount of post-production work, compression, and limiting your program will need for vinyl transfer. With acoustic-oriented projects, the general rule of thumb is the less limiting you use, the better. You can mix and master at levels that allow the music to sound natural and dynamic.

Heavier music with more will require more compromises in the transfer to vinyl. As a general rule (for recording for vinyl or any medium), working to get tones and levels right in the recording and mixing stages is the best way to go. While the overall volume of your master can be addressed in the post-production stage, as can a certain amount of compression and frequency control, heavy limiting and compression in the mastering stage can result in some issues for your final product.

High frequencies and sibilance

High frequency and sibilant , particularly with vocals and cymbals, can turn into distortion on a vinyl record if not mixed properly. Vinyl can’t reproduce high frequencies as accurately as digital media. In fact, higher frequencies can sound fine on playback from WAV files, but when transferred to vinyl, some of those bright, sibilant frequencies can turn into a crispy buzz. This can result from various factors, but specific frequencies, mixed improperly or lacking proper compression, can ultimately be too prominent and distort on playback.

In most of these cases, it isn’t an issue of the sound not being pressed onto the vinyl accurately, it’s that the stylus is unable to track the sounds correctly. The same recording can sound fine on a 24 bit WAV file, and might replicate perfectly on a CD or other digital product.

One way to avoid sibilance issues is simply to choose the correct and employ an effective pop filter in the recording process. Knowing from the outset that vinyl will be your ultimate end product can affect choices you make all the way back to the pre-production and arranging stages.

The use of a de-esser in these situations can also be a key and is highly recommended when mixing and mastering for vinyl release. A de-esser acts like a very narrow-band compressor that is set at specific frequencies where you typically get “esses” and “tees” and other sibilant consonant sounds. It compresses those frequencies to keep them from jumping out and becoming a problem in playback.

Center the bass frequencies

With lower frequencies, and especially in music that requires a lot of bass and low frequency content, the recommendation is to center your bass frequencies when preparing a mix for release on vinyl. In essence, make the low frequency information mono. It’s also recommended that you avoid hard panning of the toms when recording drums.

5 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl Audio mastering for vinyl

Mastering is the final step in the recording process, which takes place after the mixing process (post-production) to optimize and add the final sonic touches to your recordings. When you send your master to a professional mastering studio like The SoundLABTM at Disc Makers, your overall program level is set, as well as the song-to-song (AKA relative) levels. EQ, compression, and other digital processing is also used to make your recorded material sound as good as possible when played in the various listening environments of the customers who enjoy the end product. When that end product is a vinyl record, certain specific considerations (many already mentioned) need to be accounted for.

Sibilance and bass

If the music program is sibilant overall, the audio can be cut at a lower amplitude, which can help with the distortion caused by the high-frequency information. The result, though, is a vinyl record that’s at a lower volume level, and the surface will be more prominent. Just like CDs, you’ll want to compare your vinyl album to others in your genre. The more compromises you make compressing your program or lowering amplitude to compensate for anomalies in the mix, the more you’ll notice a difference when compared to other vinyl releases in your genre.

Sibilance issues with a vocalist can be addressed, to some degree, in mastering, though it poses challenges. By the time a project reaches the mastering stage, the vocals are mixed among various other instruments and sounds, making it difficult (or impossible) to pick out the vocals exclusively. De-essing in the mixing stage can be very important for vocals when pressing for vinyl, particularly with a vocalist who’s prone to sibilance. As mentioned, microphone selection and a good pop filter can also go a long way toward avoiding these issues.

Just like with sibilance, proper handling of your bass frequencies is best done in the mix. There are things that can be tackled in the mastering process: one approach is to take everything below 100 Hz and center it. This process and standard of centering bass frequencies can be listed among the major differences between audio mastering for CD and other digital formats versus mastering for vinyl.

Program order and inner groove distortion

Inner groove distortion refers to how tracks closer to the label and spindle hole on a record can sound audibly different that those on the outer edges. (This is an issue that can be affected by the quality of a turntable and needle on a listener’s record player.)

A record is spinning at a fixed speed: it takes the needle the same amount of time to travel from point A back to A in one rotation, whether it’s on an outside groove or the closest groove to the spindle hole. At the beginning of the LP, on those outer grooves, the signal is cut across a relatively long section of vinyl. And just as with analog tape, the longer a signal is spread out across the medium, the higher the quality.

When you get to those shorter grooves near the spindle hole, your signal is transferred to a much shorter section— the same duration of audio information is recorded onto that shorter segment. The audio information, in the form of ridges and valleys, is closer together, and the more dramatic curve of the groove can affect the needle’s ability to track and read the information accurately.

6 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl To continue the tape speed analogy, consider the outer grooves as equivalent to 30 inches-per-second of analog tape (more or less), and the inner grooves more like 7/12 inches-per-second. To avoid issues stemming from the limitations of those inner tracks, the recommendation for any vinyl project is to keep your louder, bass-heavy tracks at the front end of either side, and your softer, less dynamic tracks for the end of the programs.

This could represent a notable difference in the programs between your CD and vinyl LP release, if you are doing both. With a CD, you can arrange songs purely for continuity and pacing, while with vinyl, factors such as song length and dynamic content may change the order of your songs and which songs appear on one side or the other.

Program length

Another major difference between a program running on CD vs. vinyl is how many minutes of music you can include on an album. While a CD can hold almost 80 minutes of music, the capacity of a 12" LP is quite a bit less, which means you might be faced with doing a double vinyl set, cutting your program, or rearranging tracks to best fit the format. Here are the program running time recommendations for 12" and 7" vinyl.

12" vinyl 7" vinyl 33 1/3 rpm 33 1/3 rpm Maximum: 6 minutes per side Ideal: ≤18 minutes per side Good: 18-20 minutes per side 45 rpm Acceptable: 20-22 minutes per side Maximum: 4.5 minutes per side 45 rpm 45 rpm is always the best choice for a 7”, Ideal: ≤12 minutes per side if side length permits. 33 1/3 rpm can be Good: 12-14 minutes per side more prone to distortion. Acceptable: 14-15 minutes per side

Back to the analog tape analogy: at 45 rpm, you’re stretching the same signal over a longer section of vinyl compared with 33 1/3, and therefore increasing the quality of the playback. That’s why 45 rpm produces a better-quality end-product, though the running time makes it limited for anything other than maxi-singles and EPs.

7 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl Production and manufacturing

Audio master

The general rule is to provide the highest resolution format for your audio master as possible. 24 bit 96 kHz WAV files are recommended, though the majority of audio masters we see are usually 24 or 16 bit at 44.1 or 48 kHz.

Disc Makers can accept your master on any of the following formats: • Audio CD • Data files (, aiff, FLAC, etc.) on CD-R, DVD-R, flash drive, or via upload. • Tape (DAT) • DDP file set (on CD-R, DVD-R, flash drive, or via upload) • 1/2” or 1/4” analog tape

Note: DAT and analog tape masters will need additional work performed by the SoundLAB in order to prepare a replication-ready master. Free Guide

For more information about preparing your master, download our free guide.

The vinyl record production process

Traditionally, vinyl record production includes a stamper made from a master. In this process, once your audio master is ready, a lacquer—an aluminum disk coated in acetate (something like nail polish)—is placed on a lathe, or a record-cutting machine. Audio out of a computer is converted to analog, which supplies the for the lathe to cut. As the lacquer disk rotates, these electric from the master recording travel to a cutting head, which holds the stylus. Springs set at converging 45-degree angles control the needle’s lateral and vertical movements, which cuts a groove in the lacquer that begins at the outer edge and spirals in one long cut toward the center of the disc.

Once the lacquer is cut, it is coated in a metal (silver and nickel) to produce a metal master. Ultimately, when the metal hardens and is separated from the lacquer, the resulting disc is the inverse of your record, with ridges instead of grooves, which form the stamper that will be used to make the vinyl records.

The stampers are placed on a stamping press, one stamper (side A) suspended above the other (side B), with a small “biscuit” of vinyl in between. The record’s labels sit atop the appropriate side of the biscuit, and as the stampers are pressed together and heated to 380 degrees, the thick biscuit is squeezed flat by the stampers, while a knife trims the excess off the edges.

The finished record cools and solidifies, and the process begins again.

8 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl Direct metal mastering

These days, a process called direct metal mastering (DMM) is often used in place of the lacquer-cutting process (in fact, Disc Makers current vinyl manufacturing process employs the DMM technique). In the DMM process, the grooves for the master are cut directly into metal (typically copper) using a “high frequency carrier system and specialized diamond styli, vibrating at more than 40 kHz (i.e. 60 kHz) to facilitate the cutting.” [Wikipedia.]

Photo of DMM copper disc sitting on the turntable of a Neumann AM131 lathe, built in the 1930s courtesy 32bitmaschine, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

9 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl Design matters

Just like you wouldn’t let your drummer’s girlfriend mix your album (unless she’s an awesome engineer and producer, of course), why let someone other than a professional design your enormous LP art? To achieve great album art, we’ve got some advice born from experience.

Do your research Spend time searching the , and you’ll find plenty of examples of vinyl album art doneright and wrong. But even with countless album covers available to peruse online, make sure to get your hands on physical vinyl as well, whether flipping through your own collection or a bin at a local record store. Pay attention to what inspires you and draws you in, what looks good and is easy to read. Such observations can help you make the right choices when it comes to designing your own album art for vinyl.

Think big With a 12” vinyl record, you have about four times more space on each panel than you do on a CD, so use it. Design bigger than what you think you’ll need. Don’t design for a CD and try to upscale your images to fit the size of a vinyl jacket. If you’re working in a design program like Adobe Photoshop with a raster file—psd, tif, jpeg, or other similar formats—increasing the size of the image can result in pixilation or distortion. The images for each panel should begin at the size of the vinyl jacket proportions at 300 dpi.

Outsource Just because you can find your way around Photoshop or InDesign doesn’t mean you’re the best person to design your vinyl packaging. If you are not a designer, find someone who is. If you choose to work with Disc Makers, we have seasoned in-house professional designers in our Design Studio who can help create a look and package that will blow you away.

Print and proof Many artists and producers listen to their final masters time and time again to make sure everything is perfect before calling the project done. When it comes to album design, the same level of meticulous attention should be given. Proofread, and then have a handful of trusted folks from your team read and proof your art and . Vinyl is big, and that makes mistakes look even bigger. Find a way to print your design and proof it at actual size.

10 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl Set your expectations

Ultimately, you may need to set some expectations for your final product, as it’s going to sound different pressed to vinyl than it did in the tests and mixes you’ve heard. It’s likely you’ve spent a lot of time in the studio listening to playback of a digital source recording. Once your program is pressed to vinyl, some high-frequency content might come back sounding harsh or edgy, or not being reproduced as crisply and cleanly as the original source. Depending on the volume and program, your tests may come back from the plant with less bass than you expected because the engineers may have had to roll off some low frequencies.

Volume and low-frequency content go hand in hand with the length of the side. If you try to pack a long program on one side, those grooves are going to be close together. At some point, you physically run out of space. In these cases, some low-frequency roll-off may be necessary to compensate and make additional room.

It’s important to note that comparing your vinyl record to your original digital master and files can throw some of these differences into sharp focus. Your overall volume might need to be modified as it relates to the high- and low- frequency content, so you might be better off making those comparisons with other vinyl records in a similar genre than you would be comparing them to your digital master.

However, do not get too wrapped up in comparing the overall volume of your vinyl pressing to that of other albums. Variables such as the length of the program and the amount of bass can allow some records to be cut louder than others. Remember that, with vinyl, people will generally be listening to your album in its entirety, setting the playback volume appropriately at the beginning of the first side. The listener won’t be swapping records back and forth quickly with other artists, as might happen with streaming .

Tips for reviewing your test pressings You can gently clean your test pressings with a microfiber cloth to remove any dust that may have settled on the grooves. Dusty grooves can cause pops or clicks in playback.

To get an accurate review of your vinyl test pressing, ensure that the turntable you’re using is a quality player with a properly weighted tonearm. Many entry-level turntables have tonearms that are not adjustable and are either too light or too heavy, which causes skipping in playback. This is an issue related to the player, not the test pressing.

If there is an issue with one of your test pressings and not the others, that is good news! That means the issue or defect is isolated to that test pressing, rather than your vinyl master. In most cases, a or an improperly weighted tonearm is the culprit and both are an easy fix.

Vinyl options and weight Disc Makers offers a large selection of custom-colored vinyl LP variations, including mixed and random colors. Standard weight for a 12” record averages between 140 and 150 grams, though the final weight is determined by your master content and vinyl color. (180 gram is available for 12” formats in black vinyl only.) The average weight for a 7” record is 40 grams (also available in colored vinyl).

Turn times and more Another major consideration when heading into vinyl manufacturing is the significant difference in production times compared to CDs. Turn times fluctuate seasonally and with major market demand, and can range from 8-10 weeks to 14-16 weeks or more from the time you place your order, approve your proofs, and receive your product. Please note, the minimum order for vinyl records is 100 units.

11 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl Written and edited by Andre Calilhanna. Thanks to Brian Lipski, Michael Gallant, David Hevalow, Tom Barrett, and the sources listed below for information and inspiration.

Go to Disc Makers vinyl product page for the latest deals, details, and offers.

Images of microscopic view of vinyl grooves courtesy That Eric Alper

EdisonTechCenter

How Record Players Work (How Stuff Works) by Meredith Bower

The Stereo : How Does It Work? (Joe Collins, YouTube)

Vinyl Mastering (Gotta Groove Records)

Get your custom vinyl package from Disc Makers PROFESSIONAL MASTERING —your home for 12" and 7" for CDs, VINYL, DIGITAL vinyl production and VIDEO

CLICK HERE to order online CLICK HERE to get a custom quote or call 800-468-9353 online or call 800-468-9353

12 The Musician’s Guide To Vinyl